And They All Fall Down
by TwistingKaleidoscope
Summary: She and Zach, they were always destined to die young. Cammie-centric. Mentions of Cammie/Zach.


**Author's Note: **I had written the beginning five, six (?) like a year ago and am just now finishing. It's dark and depressing and probably out of character, but I like the basic idea of it and need to get it out there. This is probably the darkest fic that I've ever written. So, sorry. But I do hope you like it. (Would that be

**Summary:** She and Zach, they were always destined to die young.

**Warning: **Character deaths, angst, dark.

* * *

**And They All Fall Down**

_one_

Once upon a time, she was a little, innocent girl sitting on her father's knee. He bounces her, once, twice, and she giggles. Falling back into his chest, she grins up at him with a brilliant smile and wide eyes, "When I grow up, I want to be just like you, Daddy."

A smile is there on his lips, but her four-year old self doesn't notice the effort that it takes to hold the smile there. "No, sweetie," he says softly, but there's a strength, a worry behind his strong, deep voice, and, for once, the ever-present humor is gone. "Don't grow up to be like me."

She giggles again, thinking that he's playing. "Okay, Daddy," she says, but she doesn't really mean it.

* * *

_two_

She's seventeen years old when she feels closest to her father.

He's been gone, dead for almost seven years, when she lies broken and bloodied on a cot in a cabin in a country she doesn't remember. As she writhes in pain, the mattress below her moves away from the wall. She sees them then, the initials '_MAM'_ carved into the mortar between the stones.

Her hands shake as her fingers trace the letters. He was here.

Her father.

Dr. Smith walks in with two other men she doesn't recognize.

"Let's take her to her father."

She realizes, then, that her father died here, in this cabin, and that she was going to die here, too.

* * *

_three_

When she wakes up, she doesn't know who she is or where she is, but she knows deep within her that something has changed.

She's broken, but alive, and she knows that she's been given a second chance.

But she looks in the mirror, into eyes that she no longer recognizes, and she knows that her life now isn't a blessing.

It's a curse.

There's a sadness in her and an empty space in her memory.

And she knows that her life will never again be the same.

* * *

_four_

"I'm very much like him, aren't I, Mr. Solomon?" She traces her fingers on a pane of frosted glass in one of her favorite passageways.

Behind her, Mr. Solomon doesn't flinch, doesn't show any outward reaction, but she knows that she leaves him reeling with her question. "Yes," he finally answers with only a single word. She thinks that maybe it's so his voice won't break.

She traces her initials on the glass, and she flashes back to those moonlit nights when she carved her initials into that mortar with just her fingernails. "Am I too much like him, do you think?"

"I won't lose you too." He answers, and she knows he understood her implications.

She looks up, into the reflection of the glass at him. "You can't promise that." Her voice is mournful, like she wishes he could, but it's also a bit serene too, like she's glad that he cannot.

"I won't lose you." He repeats firmly, and she realizes that if anyone could promise her that, it would be him.

* * *

_five_

Reminiscent of their first kiss, Zachary Goode dips her in the Grand Foyer on his return to the Gallagher Academy after Winter Break, steals a kiss, and leaves. It was only a matter of time, she realizes, as he had been gone over Winter Break more than he had been present.

There's a sense of finality in the kiss, and he doesn't have to say goodbye for her to know that she would never see him again.

She doesn't cry, and she still isn't sure if she's ever loved him, but sometimes, sometimes, she entertains the thought that her heart has been broken.

* * *

_six_

At the age of eighteen, she realizes that her life is an hourglass, and the sand is quickly running out.

She's barely an adult, but she has permanent bags under eyes that have seen a lifetime of harshness and death. Her body is scarred, both on the skin and under it.

Her family and friends watch her blow out her candles at the birthday party she was robbed, and they grin and clap. She looks up into those faces of the ones she loves the most and wishes that she didn't see so much hope and love in return.

Because, why hope for the hopeless?

It's only the downhill slope from here, of course.

* * *

_seven _

On the day of her graduation from Gallagher Academy, she's called into her mother's office. Her mother doesn't have to say a word, but she knows.

This was inevitable.

But her mother repeats the words that she had been told with a grim face.

A body's been found, she says. It's Zach's, she says. He's been killed, she says.

Her mother wraps her in a tight hug, like she's going to cry, but not a tear falls.

She and Zach, they were always destined to die young.

Later that afternoon, she walks across the stage of Gallagher, takes her diploma from her mother, hugs Mr. Solomon, and doesn't look back.

* * *

_eight_

Her friends call constantly, but eventually they all stop.

It begins with Macey.

It's a dark night, and rain is pouring down her back, but she stops outside this TV store when she hears a familiar name.

Preston Winters is dead.

In her mind, she can see Macey's accusing glare and heartbroken face. She stands there in the rain for five minutes.

She wasn't there to help play Knight-in-Shining-Armor, and now, he's dead.

* * *

_nine_

CIA agents find her everywhere, at the gym, in the coffee shop, walking down a random street in Paris.

Work with us, they say.

You're a natural.

She always leaves then. She knows she is. Spying is in her blood. It's the air she breathes. It's the dreams she dreams. It's her signed death warrant.

But, no, she says.

Her mother shows up at her apartment.

I'm fine, she says.

* * *

_ten_

Liz is next.

The girl with the blond hair, who she hasn't seen in six months, hacks into her computer.

Her message contains expressions of worry. You should get help, she tells her.

Zach's gone, she tells her. You're father, too, she says.

She doesn't smile like she used to at Liz's view of a black and white world.

Instead, she smashes her computer because there are shades of gray, too.

She drinks and drinks and drinks and stumbles to a payphone down the street.

The phone rings and rings and rings and rings, and soon she hears a voicemail message.

"Goodbye, Liz," she slurs into the phone.

The next morning, she awakes with a hangover, and she can practically hear the blonde's sobs.

* * *

_eleven_

"I should have always known that I would eventually have to save you from yourself," Mr. Solomon tells her.

He's in her apartment, sitting on the bare floor, when she returns one day from a run.

She had never really _moved _in. There's a refrigerator stocked with alcohol, and a bed with sheets and a blanket. It's enough. It's plenty.

She smiles at him sadistically. He's good enough not to flinch. "Who says there's saving for the wicked?"

"You're not wicked," he tells her with a frown. She grabs a beer from the refrigerator and takes a long, hard swig. He silently stands and moves to stand in front of her.

"I'm poison." She grins, showing too many teeth. "Everything I touch," she holds out her hand, examining it, "dies."

"I'm still here." He reaches for the beer, but she quickly moves it from his grasp.

Her smile fades, and she tilts her head, "For now."

He deftly takes the beer from her. She reaches for it and stumbles into him. They bump chests. She looks up at him for a moment before leaning up and kissing him.

He snatches away after a shocked pause. He wipes at his lips incredulously.

She freezes, hurt. Her eyes narrow. She didn't ask him to come, and she would prefer if he would never come back. "What?" She seethes, teeth bared, and with the same breath, she snaps, "Not even a pity lay for the girl whose father you killed?"

He flinches, and she regrets her words.

_Almost_.

He turns and leaves. She doesn't go after him with apologies, and he doesn't try to save her again.

* * *

_twelve_

Abby and Bex stop by one day.

She's at home, sitting in the floor, always the martyr. A pile of empty bottles surround her.

Abby slams open the door that she doesn't bother to lock and stops in, the devil in high heels.

"_What_ did you do to Joe?" Abby snaps, walking over to stand in front of her niece. Bex doesn't speak and stares at what remains of her best friend with an emotionless expression.

But she just looks up and remains silent.

Abby's eyes narrow. "_Look_. You can sit here and wallow in self-pity as if you're the only one who's ever lost someone, but don't hurt others, especially when they beat themselves down enough."

She grabs an empty bottle and stares at it.

Abby spits, "I hope you're happy. You've finally driven away everyone who's ever loved you." She looks back at Bex and sees the tears falling down her face. She turns away.

She murmurs, "Everyone who isn't dead."

Abby leaves without a goodbye.

Bex lingers and leans forward several times as if she's going to walk towards her, but she never does. Instead, her best friend in the entire world turns and walks out the door without saying a word. Her fiercest, loudest friend doesn't put up a fight.

And they all fall down.

She watches Bex and stands to chase her, to chase them, but she stumbles after one step and falls.

It's the last time she'll ever see her aunt and her best friend.

And, knowing this, she vomits, emptying her stomach.

* * *

_thirteen_

She sneaks into Gallagher one day and waits for her mother to show up.

When Rachel walks in, she jumps.

"Hey, Mom," she says gingerly as she stands from her mother's chair.

Her mother smiles and thinks that she's recovered.

She wraps her in a tight hug and whispers, "I love you," into her ears. She stays until her mom falls asleep, and then she leaves.

She wants to cry, to curl up into her mom's chest and beg her to chase her demons away, but she still flees, leaving a folder full of letters in the secret hiding spot of her mother's. She knows she'll find them, but she'll be long gone by then.

"Goodbye, Mom."

* * *

_fourteen_

She turns nineteen chasing down her demons in Switzerland.

She's almost done, she realizes. One more to go.

One more to leave like they left her father and Zach.

She never thought she would see nineteen.

It's an accomplishment, she realizes, but it feels more like a punishment.

She finds the last one cowering underground.

"Hello," she murmurs, but she means goodbye.

Sometimes, she thinks she misses the 'once upon a times,' back when she had a happy future and didn't play the wicked queen.

* * *

_fifteen_

It's a sunny day when she breathes her last breath. The sky is perfectly clear, not a cloud in sight, and the sun shines high in the sky. A warm breeze caresses her cheek. She even entertains the thought that day's beautiful.

However, it's then that she hears the sound of footsteps.

They've found her, she realizes. She was too sloppy, she realizes.

This is revenge, she realizes.

She fights but only because she doesn't want them to have the satisfaction of the victory.

They're too strong, too numerous, too experienced.

Finally, she thinks of her family.

She gasps for breath as they twist the knife deeper into her stomach.

But now it's over, she knows.

She cries, and the tears permanently stain her face.

She wins a little, even though she loses.

They take her to her father.


End file.
